1. Field
The disclosure relates to electronics and, more specifically but not exclusively, to dielectric-loaded cavity resonators.
2. Description of the Related Art
This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
Dielectric-loaded cavity resonators are often used as band-pass filters for RF (radio frequency) transmission systems. A conventional cavity resonator has a metal box defining a cavity within which is located a cylindrical dielectric resonator. The under-damping of a cavity resonator is characterized by its Q factor, where higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy loss relative to the stored energy of the resonator. In many RF signal processing applications, it is desirable to employ cavity resonators that have high Q factors. It is also often desirable to employ cavity resonators that are as small as possible. Unfortunately, in general, the smaller the size of a cavity resonator, the smaller the Q factor. It is therefore advantageous to design relatively small cavity resonators with relatively high Q factors.